(1) Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an apparatus for manipulation of an auxiliary tool within a subterranean well.
(2) Brief Description of the Prior Art
The art is well aware of various types of tools or devices which must be operated, such as set, retrieved, activated, or the like, at a given depth or location within a subterranean well. Such devices include expandable elastomeric permanent or retrievable plugs, packers, ball-type and other valves, injectors, perforating guns, tubing and casing hangers, cement plug dropping heads, and other devices typically encountered during the drilling, completion and/or workover of a subterranean well. Such devices and tools will hereafter collectively be referred to as "auxiliary tools."
Activation or manipulation of some of such auxiliary tools often is achieved by use of some sort of apparatus, sometimes referred to as a "setting tool," which may be introduced into the well along with or subsequent to the auxiliary tool on wire or electric line, continuous or coiled tubing, or by other known means. Some of such setting or manipulation tools are known to apply hydrostatic well pressure within well fluids at the setting or activating depth through the setting apparatus and upon a face of a piston head or the like to move a stroking rod, cylinder or housing member in a direction to activate manipulation of the setting tool. Likewise, such manipulation or setting tools are also available which are activated by means of a power charge to cause an explosion within a portion of the housing of the manipulation tool and the energy defined by this explosion drives such piston, stroking rod, or other member to cause the manipulation of the auxiliary tool. By "explosion" is meant the continuous generation, sometimes comparatively slowly, of energy by electric activation of a power charge-initiated reaction which results in a build up within a chamber of transmittable gaseous pressure within the apparatus.
Some types of auxiliary tools cannot be completely manipulated, such as set, simply by incorporation into the manipulation tool of either energy defined through a conventional power charge-initiated explosion within the device or simply by the use of hydrostatic pressure defined in and through well fluids at the manipulation or setting depth in the well.
The present invention addresses the deficiencies found in the prior art by providing an apparatus and method which sequentially apply to a stroking rod assembly within the manipulating apparatus the forces generated by both hydrostatic pressure of the well fluids at the setting or manipulation depth within the well and the force generated by energy defined through a controlled explosion generated within the manipulation apparatus.